Brown John's Body by Winston K. Marks (reading diary txt) ๐
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- Author: Winston K. Marks
Read book online ยซBrown John's Body by Winston K. Marks (reading diary txt) ๐ยป. Author - Winston K. Marks
Neff knew all about rats. More than anybody in the world knew about rats. When you live among them for three decades you find out about their cunning wariness, fecundity, secretiveness, boldness, omnivorous and voracious appetites. Fools reviled them as predators and scavengers. Neff appreciated them for what they really are: The most adaptable mammal on earth.
John was smart but no smarter than the rest. Neff had proved this by teaching every rat he captured alive to talk.
Impossible they had told him. Even parrots and parakeets only imitate sounds in their squawkingโyes, and pet crows. Animals don't have thinking brains, they said. They react, trial and error, stimulus and response, but they don't think.
Neff didn't know about the others, but he knew about rats.
Keep them hungry and lonely for a mate. Hurt them. Torture them. To hell with this reward business. Rats are like men. Mentally lazy. They'll go for bait, sure, but they'll go faster to escape painโa thousand times faster.
And rats have lived with man from the first. They have a feeling for language like the human brat. Between partitions, inches from a man's head when he lies in bed talking to his wife, under a man's feet while he's eating, over his head in the warehouse rafters while he's working. Always, just inches or feet away from man, running through sewers, hiding in woodpiles, freight-cars, ships, barns, slaughter-house, skulking down black alleys, listening, hiding, stealing, always listening.
Yes, rats know about man, but rats had never known a man like Erd Neff, a man who hated all mankind. A man who chose a rat for a companion in preference to one of his own kind. Rats named John learned about Neff. They learned that his tones and inflections had specific meaning. They learned very fast under the stabbing prod of the marshmallow fork. With just enough food to keep them alive, their blind ferocity changed into painful attention. They learned to squeak and squawk and form the sounds into a pattern with their motile tongues. In weeks and months, they learned what the human brat learned in years.
"Stand up like a goddamned man!"
ohn stood up, his tail the third point of the support.
"Say the alphabet."
"Ehโbihโfihโdihโihโeffโjihโetchโ"
Neff lit a cigar and watched the smoke float away from the ceiling blower and vanish into the overhead vent in the far corner. He bobbed one foot in time to the squeaky rhythm of the recitation. He took no exception to John's failure with "I," "s", and "z". The other Johns had been unable to handle them, too.
"Hungrih, Neff. Hungrih!"
The big man picked out three grains of wheat. He noticed the can was almost empty. One by one he handed the kernels to his pet, waiting for John's "Tinkoo!" in between.
"Mur! Mur!"
"Lazy tongue! It's more, not mur!"
John dropped to all fours and retreated. Usually Neff slapped him in the belly when he used that tone. But Neff was bemused tonight. He kept listening for sounds, sounds that he knew could never penetrate the thick walls.
They were out there, he was sure. Another damned fool or two, flashing a light around, trying to figure out something. Neff remembered one pair who had even tried nitroglycerin. He saw the burns on the outside of the door the next morning.
Amateurs! Nobody knew for sure just how much money Neff kept in the old desk, and big-time pros wouldn't tackle a job like this without a pretty fair notion of the loot. For all they knew, maybe he mailed it to an out-of-town bank.
"Okay, fetch the pencil."
John jumped from the desk and moved toward the open door of the shower-stall where Neff had thrown the pencil stub. He paused by the wheat can, then scurried on to get the pencil. He climbed Neff's leg and dropped the pencil into the open palm.
"Smart punks up at State College. So you can't teach a rat anything but mazes and how to go nuts from electric shocks, eh? Wouldn't they be surprised to meet you, John?"
"Hungrih!"
"You're always hungry!"
"Meat! Meat!"
"Yeah. You can sound your "e's" real good when you say, 'meat.' Some day I'll cut off your tail and feed it to you." He laughed, grabbed John by the coarse hair of his back and slipped him back under the cage.
Then he undressed down to his underwear, turned out the light and lay on the narrow iron bed. John rustled in his cage for a minute, then there was only the faint hum of the blower and sucker motors in the ventilating system. The incoming and outgoing air was baffled and trapped to kill sounds, and spring-loaded sliding doors poised to jam shut and seal off the room if anyone tampered with the exterior grilles in the roof.
The fans hummed softly and Erd Neff slept.
Sleck-thud, sleck-thud!
e was awake pawing the wall for the light switch, but even as his hand found it, and his eyes discovered the closed ventilator doors, a reddish vapor sank over his body. A single gasp and Neff was clawing his throat. Sharp, brown-tasting, acid-burning, eye-searing, nose-stinging!
He fell to his knees and clawed to the far corner, fighting for air, but the acrid stink stained his throat and nose. His eyes kept burning. The whole room must be full!
The door-lever! No, that's what they wanted. Blind! Gun's no good now. God, for a breath of air! Damned tears! Can't open my eyes! Air! Got to have it!
His throat refused to open. The stink, a little like iodine, a lot like a hospital smell but a million times strongerโraked at the tender tissues of his throat. Icepicks stabbed from his soft palate, up into his brain, his temples. He swayed against the door, caught the lever and heaved convulsively. The door fell away slowly. He stumbled forward, gashing his knee against the sharp jamb.
A light struck redly through his clenched, tear-soaked eye-lids.
"That did it. Get the gun!" The voice was high, almost girlish. A young boy?
A slightly heavier voice said, "Got it. Keep an eye on him while I find out why the fan stopped working."
"He's going no place. You were right. That bromine stuff really did the business. Lookit his face. Sure it won't kill him?"
"Don't care if it does now. We got the door open."
"What is this bromine, anyhow? Boy it sure stinks!"
"It's a chemical element like chlorine, only it's a liquid. It fumes if you don't keep it covered with water, and the fumes really get you. They used it in gas bombs in the war."
"That was chlorine."
"They used bromine, too. I read it."
"Air!" Neff rasped.
"Help yourself if you call this stinkin' stuff in your warehouse air."
From the vault the deadened voice came. "This must be the switch. The other switch is for the lights."
"Look out! When you turn it on don't get dosed yourself."
"I only dumped a few drops in. There. It'll blow out in a fewโphew, let me outta here. That stuff doesโGod, it's worse than the dose I got in the chem lab!" The voice grew, coughing and cursing. "Better wait a minute or two. How's our big brave dog-killer doing?"
On his hands and knees, Neff was on the verge of passing out, but doggedly he tried to place the voices. Highschool kids? Bromine. Sounded like a chemical they might filch from the highschool laboratory.
A kick in the ribs reminded him he was still helpless. "All right, get back in there." They aimed him through the vault door and kept kicking him until he went. They hauled him up into his chair. He tried to strike out blindly, but his chest was full of licking flames that spread pain out to his shoulders.
Now rope whipped around his feet, hands, chest and neck, jerking his body hard against the castered desk-chair and cramping his head back. "Tie him good. No way to lock him in with this door."
Neff opened his eyes. The boys were wet blurs rummaging through his desk. "Look! Just look at that! We can't carry all that."
"Get one of those burlap sacks out there. By the door."
Footsteps went and returned. "Now, just the small bills. Up to twenty. No, Jerry, leave the big stuff alone. Who'd take one from a kid?"
"Okay, let's make tracks."
"Wait!" Neff said desperately. "My legs and hands. You've cut off the circulation!"
omething hard like the barrel of a gun rapped down on the top of his head. "I ought to blow your dirty brains out. Killing my little sister's dog, damn you. Damn you, I think I will kill you. Damn you, damn you!" the voice crested.
"Wait a minute Jerry," the other voice cut in. "I got a better idea. Here. Look at this."
Short silence. "Yeah! Yeah, that's just dandy. Look how thin he is. That's just what the doctor ordered. Okay, the top's loose. Stand by the door and don't let him get by you. Wait. Got your flash? Good! In the dark. That's real good. Which switch is it?"
"Throw them both."
"Okay. Flash it over here. Look out, here I come!"
"Hurry up! Look at that hungry, black-eyed little devil. That ought to fix up the son-of-aโ" ...Thunk! The compression rammed heavily into Neff's ears. The bolts shot solidly into place from the outside, and the combination knob rang faintly as it was spun. Silence.
They'd go out the same way they came in and tack the board back in place. How long before anybody would miss him? Twenty-four hours? Hell, no. Nobody would bust a gut worrying that soon. Two days? Some weeks he was gone several days making the rounds of his loan offices.
A week? Maybe. Girls at the Palace would get suspicious. Tell Collin Burns.
But a week! They'd cut off the blower when they threw both switches. No ventilation. No air.
Neff strained at the ropes. His legs were pulled under the seat so tightly that his feet were turning numb. Hands were tingling, too. Dirty little sadists. Turning John loose thinkingโ
He had to get loose. Less than one day's air, thenโ
"John!" Thank God John wasn't an ordinary rat.
"John, come over to me. These ropes. Chew them, John. Come on, John. Come on, boy."
No sound at first, then a faint motion in the old newspapers.
"John, say the alphabet!"
"Ehโbihโโ"
"That's right. Go on!"
"Fihโโjihโโ" The squeaking stopped.
"Come over to me, John. Come to me, boy."
He held his breath. The beating of his heart was so loud he couldn't be sure that John was moving. The silence was long. Even the rat was blind in this blackness. He must be patient.
Sweat began oozing and trickling down his face, his armpits, his backโeven his left leg. No, wait! That wasn't sweat!
he throbbing in his legs was greatest at his left knee. The trickle was blood from the gash. It ran freely, now, the ropes backing up arterial pressure. Never mind that!
"John!"
The coffee can tipped over, and the racket made Neff start against his bonds. The rope sawed his Adam's apple.
Crunch!
"Leave that damned wheat alone, John. Come over to me, boy. I'll give you a whole bag full when you chew off these ropes. Hear that, John? And a chicken foot. I'll bring you a whole chicken. A live one. I'll tie her down so she won't peck you. That's what I'll do, John."
He was breathing heavily now. "Do you get me, John? Would you like a live chicken?"
"Yeff."
The crunching resumed for a minute then stopped. Neff remembered, there had been only a dozen or so grains of wheat left. John would still be hungry. The thought of a chicken should do it. If not, he could threaten him.
Neff waited. Relax! There was all night to work this out.
Finally, he felt something at his ankles. "That's the boy, John. Up here and down my arms. They're behind me. Get the rope off my hands first. Come on boy."
It was John, all right. Neff could feel the little claws coming up his left leg.
"Come on, hurry up, John. Tell you what. I'll bring you a nice, fat female, just like yourself. A live one. You can live in the cage togethโโJohn, don't stop there!"
The claws had paused near his knee and were clinging to the blood-soaked cloth.
"No, no, John! Don't! I'll stick you with the fork. I'll stick youโI'll kill you! John, we got to get out of here or we'll both die. Die, do you hear! We'll suffocate! Don't do that. Stop.
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